Fed puts rate rises on hold as global economy slows

The Federal Reserve signalled it is putting further interest rate rises on hold given tepid inflation and risks to global growth, in a relief to investors who have been fretting that the central bank was excessively hawkish.

Transcript

Thanks, Sam Fleming from the Financial Times. How sensitive are you right now to developments in core inflation when determining the next move? Thanks.

You know, generally speaking we think the outlook is favourable and we think that these crosscurrents that are referred to, these risks, are going to be with us for a while. We think our stance is appropriate, we think there's no pressing need to change our policy stance and no need to rush to judgment there. I would say that we'll be looking at a full range of data and that will include inflation data, it will include all data relevant to our dual mandate of stable prices and maximum employment.

Remember that our inflation objective is a symmetric one, meaning that we are always trying to get to 2 per cent and we don't look at... we look at inflation equally on both sides. So I can't get into specific hypotheticals but I do believe that we have a symmetric objective and I believe we'll act that way.